Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth Wes Moore 20240712

In depth. This is our Monthly Program with one author talking about his or her book w and we are pleased ts month to be joined by westmore who is the author of three books plus Childrens Book and the novel. His first book came out in 2010 called the other westmore and cthen his book the work came ot in 2015 and its most recent book is about baltimore during the arrest and death of freddie gray that just came out five days. It is called that but in your book, the work, you write that the militaryta saved your life. What don you mean by that . Guest i think the military played an incredible role in my life where some of the most important times in my life have not been when i was wearing a suit or a a tshirt and jeans bt when i was wearing a uniform from this country. I was first introduced in the military system about 13 years old and i was sent to military school and hand one mandatory year in military school. It was some issues and challenges and my mom was threatening to send me to military school even though i was only eight years old and every year she would send me away i kept blowing her off but the first time i felt handcuffs to my wrist when when i was 11 years old. O my mother noted that i was intentionally hurting people that loved me so i could impress people that care less about me. Finally one day she came up and said i will send you to military school and honestly i thought she was kidding or exaggerating and then finally i realized she wasnt paid she sent to aat mandatory era military school. I hated every minute of it. I remember that first days there and iran away multiple times. Iran away five times in the first four days a military school. I also noticed that the longer i stayed and fully understand what it was that they were trying to teach me and also what was that my mom was trying to teach me and the fact that we did live in an interconnected environment and you know how everybody was doing in my unit mattered to how my unit i as a whole was doing. When i finished high school and had a chance then to go on a basketball scholarship offers i decided that the thing i wanted to do that i wanted to spend my life on was to lead soldiers. That is why i made the decision and so for me the decision to go in to the army was both a continuation of the fact that i had this level of service both on the fact they would help pay for college and that was helpful but there was also this idea that i built a debt of gratitude because i felt like it was the introduction of that in a really crucial time in my life that made a lot of difference in the life i was living. Host what was your role in the 82nd airborne . Guest i was a paratrooper and in my final role i was director of Information Operation for the first brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division paid that was a long way of saying everything we had in the information ops and that we had within our entire area of operations which was what they call rc east which is regional command in the Eastern Region of afghanistan and where pakistan and Afghanistan Border each other. I was the director of information on that. At the time when i was my last assignment we had about 1700 paratroopers under our command that we were responsible for so it was an amazing and aweinspiring experience. Host wes moore, how have you changed after that first year in military school as a 12 yearold . Guest yeah, 13 years old. I would say that the thing that changed for me was there was this introduction of leadership and what thatro means and what t meant and the role it played in my life where i felt like military school gave me m a chae to get away a bit of the remake of identity that was important and there was a chance to rethink my role in my space and i think the other things happening there was this very intentional introduction of leadership that matters and sometimes when people say about military school they say that they need discipline and they will do pushups and wake up early in the reality is you will do pushups ando you will wake p early and those things are true but that is not what made the experience useful for me. The thing that made the experience useful for me was this introduction to leadership and it was this idea that they are very much going to introduce you to leadership early in a very deliberate weightt where after you go through the initial basic training or whatever it is they put you in charge of something, relatively earlyom ad relatively small. It is not because that is where it happens but they want you to get a taste. They put you in charge of a hallway and they will say you are in charge of this hallway or in charge of the dumpsters or in charge of whatever and we will congratulate you and if its dirty we will help you and once they notice that they do a good job you will be promoted and then you go on to the next thing eand maybe then youll have a couple soldiers under your command and then you move up and so this is gradually extends response ability about the way they try to teach leadership frameworks and i think not only is it useful and important for me but also something that gave me a taste about what was actually so i knew going in that leading people was important to me and i knew that it wasnt a case of leading debts or soldiers or i think about the work they are doing now and being able to be a part of that process and being able to be a person who can help shape the direction of organizations and execute on things and that is something that became important and frameworks in the introduction of the necessity in my life that the public military help to foster. Host wes moore how did you become a Rhodes Scholar . Guest truth is that i think about that experience quite a bit because the first time i had a real conversation about the Rhodes Scholarship was actually when i was interning with the mayor of baltimore and the mayor of baltimore was known what a former Rhodes Scholar and he was the last day of my internship and called me into his office and said i have a picture up there because it sits on my in that picture he standing there and pointing towards a picture on his wall and he was not the type of guy that camera people were flocking around him all the time. That is not what he did but on that day on the final day of my internship he called me and said have you h thought about the Rhodes Scholarship and i told himm i had heard about it but hd not thought about it and in thes picture he took is now in my office and it is him pointing to a wall in the thing hes pointing at is his rhodes class and where he was in the picture. That was the moment we first first told me about the Rhodes Scholarship and said i should give me instructions i on people to talk to about it and i did just that. I went to talk to certain people and certain things that would help me with my essays and tell me hownd to press my lifes journey into a thousand words for the scholarship education and then i loved that story because right there in my office is a picture of known what and i am very clear that that picture would never have happened if that picture did not happen. It was an experience that i will never forget,t in one way our plane flew off less than two weeks after 911 where you know the nation and the world had just changed immeasurably and at the same time i was having this experience and it was shaped very much by 911. Especially at that point i was a military officer and it was a Study International relations in a place where i was one of only a few americans studying. You get a chance to truly Study International operations with people from brazil and china and argentina and getting a chance to understand them how all these dynamics they play amongst remarkable people and they become so my best friends. It was a pretty special training and i thanks to [inaudible] and many others who helped that pass for me and to realize [inaudible] host what is your view about taking money from the Cecil Rhodes Foundation and what did you tell the overview board . Guest one of the last questions that last question they asked me in the interview was have i spent time in south africa and im also africanamerican and i know my history in this country really well. One of the last reasons i was asked is by the person of the chairman of the board and he said you been to south africa and your africanamerican and how can you accept a piece of the rhodes money knowing the history and knowing how he made it and knowing the lives that were lost in order for him to make that. I thought about it and paused and said i know a few things for sure. One was that when cecil rhodes was creating the scholarship he did not have me in mind to be sitting here as a finalist or scholarship money. Hes probably probably turningis in his grave repeatedly knowing that i am here as a finalist for the scholarship. The other thing and that does show me what progress means and progress looks like. The fact that something would not have all intended for me that i have an opportunity to, not only stand here and utilize bit but also have a real obligation to make sure youre doing something with it. The other thing i do know is that it was my ancestors who fought and who bled and who built and who were able to build in a way that created a pathway for me to be in that seat at that moment and who were able to sacrifice and to dream for a world that they didnt see but could dream and fight for one that hopefully one day i would see. For me to have that opportunity and to be there in that seat and for me to have an opportunity to then take the privilege of that and go out as the rhodes trust says go out and fight the world i felt it would be disrespectful to them, and so, understanding that particularly whenlo you lok at the history of the roads and looking at its not even just south africa withso the entire Southern African region and the damage that he did to the people there. For his own personal benefit to the point that at that time he was the wealthiest man in the world. It is also not lost on me the obligation i now have two use the benefit that were fought long and hard for me to have been to use that now to make sure that we can create a more just and more fair world. Host wes moore, where did you grow up . Guest i spent a part of my childhood growing up in maryland and part in the bronx. You know, i called two places home. One is baltimore in one where i live now i was born a little from baltimore closer to the dc area and the new york ray spent a lot of my childhood after my dad died. My dad was a radio personality in baltimore in the dc area. One day he was complaining about his throat and said his throat was bothering him to the point he went to the hospital the next day and as he went to the hospital he was wearing raggedy close and had uneven beard and a lot of assumptions were made about my dad when he walked into the hospital that dayd looking for help. When my mom finally admitted to the hospital to join him they asked her questions like is your husband prone to exaggeration and they gave him instructions to go home and rest and if it got worse then to come back. Five hours after they released him, he died. , that is when we are living in maryland and my mother had a difficult time with the transition at that point and finally caught up her parents, my grandparents, who are living in the bronx. My grandfather was a minister in the south bronx and my grandmother was a schoolteacher in the south bronx. Their house was barely big enough for them but they figured out a way to make a big enough for all of us. We ended up moving up there and then at that point after moving up there that is where i spent a good six, seven years of my childhood before i ended up going through military school in pennsylvania. A lot of my childhood was a lot of moving around but the thing i knew is that no matter where we moved around to i had remarkable love of family who i was lucky to say that they really try to provide for us as best as they could and i know something i always felt coming up. Host from your first book, the other wes moore, my father was dead five hours after having been released from the hospital the simple instructionsea to get some sleep. Same hospital was now preparing to send his body to the morgue. My father had entered the hospital in peaking health but his face was unshaven, his close disheveled, his name unfamiliar and not in an affluent area. Hospital looked at him askance and asked him are diskless questions and basically told him to fend for himself. Now mylf mother had to plan his funeral. Why do think those assumptions were made . Guest race. I think its really one of the heart breaking things. I think about it a lot both with where we are now and also where people say at what point in your life did you know or did you understand the impact of race in the world and as you just listed out it was as early as the earliest point that peter were people werere treated different. When i think about the many systems that we have in place of our society whether its our Healthcare System or whether it was about Environmental Justice and its impossible to talk about these things without understanding the roles and impossible to understand these ideas that the systemic racism and because it is not lost to me and will never be lost to me the fact that had those factors been different that had been mentioned before there would have been a benefit of a doubt that was given and had a benefit of a doubt been given we would not have had the same type of result and this is something i know is not just anecdotal. There is data that reinforces the fact that race is one of the most predictable indicators for like outcomes across education and across the Maternal Mortality in aggressive mental and physical health and so the thing that made that real in my case in the case of my father and in the case of thinking about my Family History is this idea that i know it is inescapable to understand or inescapable to not understand and embrace the impact of race has on all of us. Host who was the other wes moore . Guest the other wes moore is a young man who i heard about actually the same time i was getting ready to head off to england and as the baltimore sun, which is my hometown paper would write an article about this local kid who had just received this Rhodes Scholarship and they were writing about my background and about my childhood in writing about the fact that just ten years ago i had handcuffs to my wrist in that house ten years later i was getting ready to sail to england on a full scholarship and what that ernie was like in that time. But around the same time they were also writing about an armed Jewelry Store robbery. The robbery was a botched robbery where four guys went into a Jewelry Store and one of the first two guys went ten they had guns andbo got everybody on the ground and in the next two guys walkex into the jewelry sth and when they walked in they pulled out mallets and one guy with a gun and one guy with the mallet went to the right and the other with a gun and amount went to the left and the mallets walked around to smash around jewelry cases. They took out watches and rings and necklaces. They got about 400,000 worth that day and one of them yelled lets go at all four ran out of the store to the adjacent parking lot. One of the peoplens in the store that day was an Police Officer who was moonlighting as a security guard. He was a 13 year veteran from the Baltimore Police force and a threetime recipient of the Police Officer of the year and was also a father of five who just had triplets. The reason he worked the day was because it was his day off from the police force and took on the second job to make extra money for his family. When he ended up or when he left the store he got up off the ground and drew his weapon and ran outside to see if he could stop the guys and when he ran outside he started kneeling next to cars and vehicles to give himself color but he didnt realize one of the vehicles he was kneeling next to was one of the vehicles the guys were in. Window rolled down and he was shot three times at point blank range and killed instantly. There ended up being a National Manhunt for those four guys and in 12 days all four guys were caught in one of the people the police were looking for that have been captured and tried and sentenced for theie crime was a guy whose name was also wes moore. The more i learned about this crime, the more i learned about the tragedy and oftentimes in newspaper articles the more i knew there were questions i wanted to ask. One day i just decided to write him a note in the first note i wrote him was like hey wes, my name is wes and here is how i heard of you and i wrote to the Correctional Institution where i knew he was and still is to this day. About one month later i got a letter back from wes moore and that one letter was fascinating to me. Everything he alluded to, all his answers and then that one letter turn to dozens of letters and it turned to dozens of visits and i am now known wes for over 17 years and he is now in your 20 ofis his life senten. Him, his older brother and two other guys who are there there the day of the crime. That is who he was and that initial letter really turned into something that changed the way i thought about the world. It really did help to serve as a important reminder of how thin that line is between our life in someone elses life. That would mean the chilling truth is that his story could have been mine and in tragedy my story could have been his. And how thin those differences are and how thin that decisionmaking is and how sometimes it is about the small decisions that we make that the sometimes we fall into and sometimes its a decision made for us and sometimes its the lack of options that we have that we make and how as a society we cannot be so quick to congratulate or castigate unless we are willing to hear their stories unless we are willing to understand the things that make our storiesnd rich and that make them real. And how to understand that the neighborhoods that we are growing up in and the fact that far too many of our children we are screaming to them about what we want from them and what we expect from them and i remember once wes said to me when we talked about baltimore and the fact that we were blocks away from each other in baltimore the last time and he said to me and i asked him and he said do you think were products of our environment talking about baltimore. He then said to me actually i think we are products of our expectations. As soon as he said that to me i thought to myself he is absolutely right. We are products of our environments are products of our expectations and someone said to me its a real shame that you lived up to your expectations and wes didnt. I said thehe l real shame is the both did. In many ways that is exactly how we have s structured a societal system where people are continually living up to their expectations so then the question becomes what expectations do we have for people. Host you quote the other wes moore talking to you in your first book the other westmore from everything you told me both of us did some pretty wrong stuff when wett were younger and both of us had Second Chances but if the situation or the context where you make the decisions dont change then the Second Chances dont mean toonc much. Guest thats right. And also, it is interesting to see who gets Second Chances and for what. That is the thing that was important to me to appreciate and understand and to be able to share is that every one of us needs Second Chances. There is not one of us that lives our lives where everything is good. I tell people all the time or even to this day my day now are two steps forward, one step back. That is now so the idea of needing Second Chances or whatever and that is a very humanistic need that will consistently be there but what we are not structured to do as a society is to have any form of parity or equal a portion of what that means right now we still know and you can look at data that reinforces it from every single measure from our criminal Justice System to our educational system that we have massive disparities when it comes tos everything from race and class about how these Second Chances are allocated and what we need Second Chances four. The fact is we have people who are living in poverty and its like when people say how does poverty showoe itself but the answer is in every way. It is the heir of the people drink, its the air their breathing, the water they are drinking and it is how their transportation assets they have around you so unfortunately you are treating this concentrated level of poverty and injustice that exists and oftentimes they colorcoded poverty and we also note this idea behind Second Chances is something that becomes fleeting. That experience and getting to speak with or getting to know wes and build my friendship with wes and frankly something that has continued on long after the book and people have asked why are you so in touch with him and dont you know hes in prison and my answer is respectfully, i know why he is there and i dont need anyone to remind me but the thing i do know is this, even our worst decisions still deserve office of humanity and they also know if we are not willing to learn these lessons and why Second Chances and how they are portioned and what they mean and giving people an opportunity for them to mean something that will be crucial about how we think about the world and ourur place in it. Host what did he think of you telling his story . Guest lass was one of the first people i went to when i started and i have a friend a woman named carrie williams, remarkable writer and shes like a real writer, she is incredibly talented but she would always ask about wes. Ive known wes for years before the idea of the book came about and every time i would see her and talk to her she would say how is wes and i would give her the update and then she said i really thank you should write about this. I think there is a bigger story to be told here. I said terry, im not interested in writing a book and i dont have time to write the book and ioo dont want to dig that deepy into his life or did that deeply into myy own and i went to go talk to wes about it and see him and i asked myself ive been approached about writing a story on our lives in relationship and he immediately said to me i thank you should do it. He said two things that have always thought, he said listen, i wasted every opportunity ive ever had in life and i will die in here. If you can do something to help people understand the consequences for their decisions that these decisions are being made in then you should do it. That became the entire fire and focus behind doing this project was that w i wanted people to understand, not just the consequences of the decision the people were making but also people to understand the context of the decisions that people were making in the neighborhoods they were making them in. Of the book was published. My editor called me up and sit hate great news, we just received word from that they wanted to do an interview with the other wes moore. Fantastic writer of the new york times, bestselling author, progressive. In a brilliant guy. And he writes remarkable things. He said i really enjoyed this book. It was race and class in about three weeks later. And propose methods that reduce. We just received word that michael was wants to write an oped. Hes a former speechwriter for president bush and writer for the washington post, brilliant guy and a conservative. He says i enjoy it and it respod individual choice, that sort of thing. You have two people that like you for two Different Reasons and i remember my wife asking e. So who do you think is right and i said honestly, i think they are both right, because you cant talk about this label responsibility without understanding at the end of the day individuals will be held to account for their choices, either good or bad. However, you cannot talk about individual choice without understanding that these individual choices are being made in societal contexts and that does influence the type of choices peoplext are making ando all of those things help to tie in a way that it translated kind of across the communities, across the wide to help people to see these conditions. We have made a bit of a double bargain where we are asking ourselves every single day how much pavement are we willing to tolerate and other peoples lives, how much pain are we willing to tolerate iner our neighbors and its own as it doesnt impact us too much. That is what is eating away at our collective souls every single day whether we are alive or not. Host this is our monthly in Depth Program discussing his or her body of work and take your calls. This month is over, the entire road scholar, former investment banker wes moore. His book came out in 2010 and searching for a life that matters came out in 2015. His most recent book we havent discussed yet is the fiery reckoning of an American City. Hes also written discovering wes moore, a young adult, take on the other wes moore and a novel on his way home which came eout in 2016. Heres how you can participate in the conversation. You can calll in 202 7488200 f you live in the east and central time zone. Zones. 202 7488201 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones and you can also text a question or comment to wes moore this way 202 7488903. Make sure to get tha that corres illegal to send texts to anybody but ourselves here. 202 7488903. We also have several social media sites where you can participate. Twitter, facebook, speed eight. Just remember booktv is our handle and you can go to those sites. One other way of contacting us, booktv cspan. Org via email and they will be taking those calls and questions in just a few minutes. What is the dissertation process like . To get into the prison in maryland . Guest its changed now due to covid19. To be honest im not sure. Right now its pretty restricted not just access but even among the people that are there where they are walked down for 23 hours due to covid19. Prior to that it is a pretty onerous process and honestly very intentionally so because itss not like there is any hey encouragement for people to be able to have outside communication and your family or friends come to visit. Ive often been a look at situations where these are nowhere near where the majority of people were being housed actually live so it is not an easy process for people to be able to go visit. And then once you do it is an allday process to go in for a visit. He will go in and go through your multiple searches and then you could wait for hours before you have a chance to see the person and when you do get the chance, its a pretty restricted tim period that they were allowed to interact. For aa lot of the people, but if the complication of staying in touch is not an easy process. Even telephonic communications, we have policiesti that exist tt are charging an exorbitant amount of money if to be able to stay in touch with their family members despite the fact the majority of people that are incarcerated will be comin bowle anda all data continue to show f a person can keep in contact with family and do that while they are, we are not having a reentry back into society in a stable and safe reentry backie into society because the vast majority of people will be coming home, the vast majority of people are not therefore life sentences or long sentences. The majority will be reentering in society for the fact that we do make it so complicated for people to not stay in touch paulson to make the transition back is really benefiting nobody because again, these are all people who will be returning back to our society at some point. Host can you pinpoint the point in your life where you could see ourselves as the other wes moore cellmate . Guest absolutely. One of the things that got me about the whole process is how in many ways arbitrary and in many ways incredibly deliberate the way that we have structured this entire framework where i remember the first time i felt handcuffs on my wrists and having at that point no Real Authority or say as to how the next phase of my life was going to go. I remember this idea of watching someone being picked up her bag up or whatever for a collection of Different Things and so you see how incredibly difficult also at the same time when it comes to many communities that were impoverished and many that were below the poverty line how there was a very deliberate sin and unfair mechanism that came in when it came to policing and it was very unfair for the officers were the that were thed to patrol these areaso and so i, you know, you absolutely see how thin that line really is and i know that one of the thingsn is that i have to credit where i am now is both the fact one of the greatest gifts god gave me is my mother and i will always be grateful for that. Family members and mentors and coaches and that type of thing, but theres one thing that kind of service and that his luck. Luck shouldnt have to be a prerequisite in order to make it in our society, not any real meritocracy. So, i think one of the things that really fuels so much of how i think about the power relationships that also how i think aboutit the work that ive been asked to do and will continue to do is in order for people to make it and understanding our own larger conversation that we must have in order for us to be able to do just that. But had it not been for a series decisions some of which would have nothing to do with that i dont see a scenario where he shouldnt be right here next to meeot contributing. Thats the dynamic. Thats the challenge. Host why did you move back to baltimore . Guest after i came back from afghanistan, i had the chance to work in washington and i worked as a white house fellow which is a yearlong fellowship. Then i was working and doing well and i got promoted a couple of times and really finding a role and the way my mind works is more quantitative and qualitative. Like nothing comes easier to me than words. I have to work a lot harder at that which is kind of ironic. They also knew that it wasnt fulfilling. I knew something was missing. I knew i wanted to spend my time being able to focus on the things that made my heart beat a little faster and that was in finance. It wasnt thinking so i remember going and having a conversation with myit old boss, a gentleman named ray maguire. I told him i said i think i want to do Something Different and he said to me you just have to understand this is an likely can hop out and hop back in whenever this treadmill keeps moving. So if you make a decision to take a permanenat apermanent poi thought about it. I got it. And i still thought that it was the right thingo to do. He said i get it. You are right. Thats when i decided a part of my journey of moving back home. I think that its an amazing place filled with amazing people. It is complicated but its also a placebu where its story is still very much being written as we speak. This is a city that used to be a city of close to a Million People and its now less than 600,000 with the exception of cleveland and detroit so you have baltimore more than any other major American City in this two decade long. And its just a city that is the home of third marshal thurgood d babe ruth and some of the most discriminatory policies can helg policies from transportation policies that this country has ever instituted on its population. Its a place that is at the same time they were celebrating the rebirth of the Baltimore Orioles and the best run they were having celebrating the Baltimore Ravens bringing the title. Com was around the same time that they also learned about the names of Anthony Anderson and chris brown and tyrone west and eventually for the gray. So it is a city that is still very much healing from its past. Still trying to searching to determine its own future. Its a place where i think people from baltimore to f the fact that they are from baltimore very seriously and they take pride in the fact that matter where they happen to be now. Hathe fact that i am still very much living down here raising my family here that i know people e that have baltimore in their routes that are no longer. But i also know it is a place our story is being written as we speak and a chance to actually be one of 600,000 authors of a pretty Great American story is exciting too me and so when i thought about the place that i really for me and davi and davir community and friendship and funny and then it became a pretty easy decision and that our family is going to go back to baltimore. Host where were you living on saturday april 12 and 2015 . Guest living in baltimore at the time. Host what happened that day . Guest that wasas a day for the gray made eye contact with the police and i say that because that was his crime. He made eye contact with the police and ran. Its important for people to understand i say that because that is in decline. It is in high crime hype over the areas where if you make eye contact with the police and run thats enough to trigger probable cause and you can then be chased and arrested. Had that been done in another neighborhood, had that been done in a neighborhood that was only a mile and a half or 2 miles away from whereer freddy gray w, he could have done the same thing and could have been doing for the job but he did it in harlem parkk and so when he made eye contact with the police and ran, he was eventually arrested and an hour after he was arrested, he was in a coma. When he finally made it to the Emergency Medical Center h centd three broken vertebrae and a crushed larynx and voice box and he never made it out of the edcoma. Er he never recovered from his injuries and he died a week later. So he spent the coma trying to survive but was not able to answer that wasas the day the worlds first, west baltimore, then eventually baltimore and then eventually the world, that was the day the world but first learn of the name freddie gray. Host you write there were reasons his death was different and bigger so quickly turned into a galvanizing moment instead of passing and painful silence like with others. Portions of his final moments were caught on camera, capturing video of the Police Encounters is commonplace now, but his death in 2015 coincided with the emergence of smart phones and social media as tools of citizen journalism. It was one of these things where i thought about what was the thing that made us even know who freddie gray was and you think about it where in the twon years before freddie gray, there wasnt just freddie gray. There was Anthony Anderson and chris brown and tyrone west. Similar situations where you have a black band makes contact with police and losee his life. There are two things we cannot underestimate. Was called on camera unlike the other ones i named where the idea of your word versus line, particularly when your word is something we cannot stick with ourselves anymore and it becomes much more complicated when there is video footage. It becomes much more complicated when we are watching it live and someone is capturing what actually happened. The second piece that makes his story difference is the context of when it happened and the fact that there was a group now called black wives matter able to respond, but was able to move. Edu watch this dynamic where this organization was founded by three black women and founded by three black women in response to what happened to Trayvon Martin. We have to be able to remind this country that it isnt about black wives mattering more but asking the country to remember that they even matter and that you cannot take out our wives with impunity. So you now solve this thing that went from a hash tag to now becoming something that would be becoming a movement that could move to mobilize quickly and different areas and so it wasnt just about how are we positioningre these things but when they happen and having the individual areas were working with the individual families having to fend for themselves. But it was about how can we put a level of attention and focus when used things continue to happen inn our community. So it was the fact we now have camera footage of him in his last moments, of him being dragged into the back of a police van and we also have this movement focused on making sure that we dont just know the names, we dont just understand the name Michael Brown and casteel and sean bell and Freddy Freddie gray. We dont just know their names, but we demand justice for the fact we have to scream and chant their name so those were the big things we fall into some of thet differences that we didnt see with some ofua the others. Host freddie gray in so many other boys like him grew up in that type of poverty that permeates everything. It was that poverty that raised the probabilityha that he woulde exactly where he was on april 12, 2015 and then again on april 27, 2015. In fact, the odds started being stacked against him a generation before he was even born. I hear people make arguments that he was this or that. Weve even had h elected officis whose job it actually is to protect him. People who sometimes you have to remind them that he was a constituent, too but its also important for people to understand the freddie gray not just in his death but in his life because often times per to the conversation that took place was very much what happened and how did he die and that type of thing and those are all important conversations we have to be able to contend with and address in understanding what happened to him on the day that he died and what led him to being in a coma for an entire week but its also important that we understand the tragedy of his life and how he existed in the first 25 years of his life because this was a young man who was born underweight, premature and addicted to heroine. His mother who battled addiction for much of her life, she never made it through high school. She couldnt read or write. When he and his twin sister finally gained enough weight to leave the hospital, they moved into the Housing Project at west baltimore. This Housing Project they moved into, that along with 480 other homes were cited in a civil lawsuit in 2009 because of the levels of lead in the home they were living in. We had known that its a neurotoxin for over a century in this country. The cbc indicates if a person has six microbes of lead in every decibel liter of blood blo the person that caused the damage for the remainder of their life. And he had 36. So this is a young man who was born premature, underweight, addicted to heroine and was lead poisoned. By that time in his life, hes 2yearsold. I mean, freddie gray never had a chance. We never gave freddie grayfr a chance. And so, when we look at the fact that his last recorded stay in school was when he was in the tenth grade and he was almost 19yearsold. When you look at the fact that hes in special education classes his entire academic career because of the lead poisoning and they were asking his teachers to perform an incredibly unfair task to be able to make up for things that frankly like the poisoning of his neurological system that none of them had anything to depict the fact that continued to do that and that every single interaction with the various systems and his wife, whether that was not just policing, but also educational systems and Health Systems in office and every single time that the systemst touched freddie gray, t wasnt just that they couldnt help him but in many ways they were each doing in their own individual ways immeasurable damage to him and that is the same as the Larger Society we have to also really contend with. Is that hard truth that every system that touched his life. It was the fact she could have died 100 times before he made eye contact with the police five years ago and it was the fact that arguably the most peaceful week in his life was the week she was in a coma, because at least that week he was surrounded by doctors and nurses and at least that week he was surrounded by lawyers and activists in the least that week there was a city that knew his name. At least that week there was a city that car cared if he livedr died. Name one week in the 25 years prior that that was the case. And so, we have to be able to seek and demand justice and it doesnt just a justice of what happened to him that day but it is a justice that cannot be excluded that it is a justice that is focused on everything from Environmental Justice and educational justice and of justice and all the other justice mechanisms that frankly completely eluded him for his entire life. Host was here from the colts. Weinwes moore is our guest frot lauderdale. Caller thank you for taking my call. Im impressed with the way you speak into your articulation. What i am calling about if i was born in 1970 into a black middleclass family and getting a good education was something that was very paramount inn our family. We were very lucky and my sister and i took a too proverbial school that made a huge difference in our lives and my family made sure we were exposed to things such as classical literature, music, theater, jazz coming in sciencjazz, even scien pbs but my dad made us watch. So, my question to you is what can be done to put experiences such liked what i had into the lives of poor black kids in poor neighborhoods. Maybe scholarships or money to be raised in a program, science programs that could be brought into the schools. Host thank you. Wes moore . Guest thank you for that question. Id love the frame of your question because what you are asking is how do we make education and allencompassing experience for our students that isnt just about the reading and writing and arithmetic sand about the qualifications but how do we make it a truly holistic experience that for most promotes this idea of Lifelong Learning and this idea of just explorations that makes life interesting so i love the frame you are approaching and i also know this right now and what we are seeing, both before covid19 and also post covid19 where we have watched these educational divides where you think about the things we spend a lot of our time on we focus on things like how to make sure kids are interesting school prepared to learn, that they are coming in knowing letters and numbers and things are going toer help themo on a proper pathway and what is it that you need. Often times its a classroom full of kids ready to go because if they teach that it is the kids that are not there. How dods you come up with that framework and they also do things like [inaudible] because if they are not in the classroom, they cannot learn and the third thing is Summer Learning loss. What happens during those months because we tea know that gap exs in june and september for many students who are not able to have s those mechanisms during e summer that can keep your Brain Development going. What happens in a situation like now where we have students that havent been any fulltime classrooms in february and when you consider the fact that quarter of the kids have logged on consistently during the time of the Virtual Education so this gives us a really important opportunity to rethink education and a different kind of way, to rethink how do we reintroduce these types of experiences that sometimes happen for certain students that sometimes happen because certain instructors are able to do it and introduce it but again it doesnt have to be exceptional. That we actually make it a part of our core. How can we think about things like rethinking aids here or a school day. How do we go through the process of thinking that it is absolutely criminal that he stiltheystill do not have studet do not have full talented mechanisms to do all of these things that will help with the learning and help them to stay above, but they are adopting curriculum and newly creative ways. So i feel like your question is a powerful one because it does force us to think through how can we use this moment so that all the things yo youve gottenl the things i got when i had an instructor that took the helps me to understand and they would take me to a play to explain it to me or to understand the things that made life so interesting and died things. How do they make for a purpose or focus for all of our students and particularly at a time when Everything Else from the educational framework is being appendedge to. Host the question made me start thinking about the difference between how she discusses her parents and their activism and freddie grays mother. Guest ther guest theres an Important Role that they play. I am not at all, it isnt lost on me that my mother was a very active parent in terms of what our kids were learning. I know that my grandmother was a schoolteacher said she was a very active participant in very clear what type of things that students should and should not be getting and i also know that for kids coming up in situations where their parents dont necessarily that isnt necessarily how their parents approached it that we cannot punish them for that. How do we come up with structures even if it isnt something that child is getting its something that child is getting structurally because i think about it where when we talk about opinions often times there can be this blame game that takesh place. Ive been working with students now for decades and heres the thing i can tell you with a real deal of certainty that the vast majority of turns it isnt that they dont care but a lot of not knowthey either do or its hard because its really complicated and challenging when you try to work three different jobs taking up 14 hours of your day and still think above the poverty line because none of them paid enough to get you over the poverty line and you are going tototy need help. You will need the same kind of help and support my family out. My mother got her first job that gave her benefits when i was 14yearsold. Her first job that about her to work one job and with multiple jobs when i was 14. My mother got her first job that gave her reliable hours when i was 14. That the same time am only hopig to raise us but what you think parents and helping to raise them. But they gave a real and significant amount of support and my mom will always credit than him say that if one for them i dont know what i would have done raising my three kids. And so, its not that they dont care, they dont know what for many they dont have the resources and so with that how do we make sure the hell do they make sure that if it isnt just a grace if your mom or a grandparent, not just the grace of their situation that allows you to have a pathway that the grace of the fact you are a valued member of society and they should be thinking about how we can create the infrastructure is in place that are just giving the kids a chance that are creating a platform where opportunity and ambition can meet each other because we dont have that now. We still have a framework that is based on luck. I know i didnt ask for it i was pleased to receive an event cant be enough and that is how we should be thinking about the moment we are going to reshape and rethink all of this. Host if you cannot get through on the phone lines but they still have a question or a comment, weve will go through our social media sites including our text number. When theyre well maryland, good afternoon. You are on the author wes moore. Caller you said what. I read ecclesiastics and perhaps the last chapter it comes into everything and i dont see how you eliminated from the world. Bill clinton was lucky the 12th of brand so i think that it just comes into everything and then you say conditions, i agree with you 100 but you seem to be going to be must have a Perfect World in order for a person to have the option of doing the right thing, and i think that is a little far out. You are wrong when you say the police have the right probable cause that they did not. Thats what they were doing. Forget about his social proble problems. Because he had a hot date or no right to arrest him. One other thing about five, he sees a young black man holding what appears to be an ak47. The clerk isrs not there. There are no people around here anywhere. He tells the police it looks like wthat lookslike we have a. Hes taking people out and you better get over there and check it out. The clerk that is back there getting thehe flavor received, e isnt there and a hes going to showal them i got the credit cad money firs host we need to bring this to a conclusion. Caller here it is. It was the proximity of an ak ak47. Bad a tragedy that it is luck. The cost did nothing wrong host good you very briefly give us a quick glance at your life story . Story . Guest i was born in b North Carolina sort of rough down there. One parent household. Ra i graduated high school i was in the military in vietnam, not in vietnam but during vietnam. I went to morgan state. Thereafter, i went to the university of maryland law school. I passed the bar. For approximately ten years and i went back to Baltimore City until 2011. Host as they are going to have to leave it there. Thank you. Caller thinking about the work that you did, some of the work that i didid even prior we launched an initiative that stands for taking a new direction where we were working with juvenile centers into this huge parts of thank you for that. To thee conditions have to be perfect to make it through and the answer is no. But thebu thing we also noticed that the conditions cannot be stacked against you either wear if you look at the statistics and the dynamics that exist right now, we talk about how a College Degree iss the target that is what we want all of the students to be able to accomplish, but because it increases to nearly 1 million, the Research Also shows black College Graduates on average or less than high school dropouts. If you take a look at this idea just new york for example, the experience hardships and 70 of the lowwage workers that are called to stand on the frontlines are people of color. The page t that you make that i also want to push on us when we talk about the conditions that exist, we also cannot underestimate the role that race plays in those conditions and the fact is we do have a framework where we could say the same if everyone is willing to work hard, they should have the opportunity to succeed. All of that is true but the reality is we are still making thatve curve for many people in almost intentionally so and unintentionally making it high so thats the thing we want to battle against him should be battling against. This idea it doesnt need to be perfect but it needs to be fair and right now it is not fair. Host brian in Montgomery Alabama please go ahead with your question or comment. Caller thank you for taking my call. Host or ufs . Please go ahead. They are listening. Caller i am enjoying the conversation. I just wanted to make a context. A what you did demonstrated quiets matter when you do that. You are demonstrating and that is the normal thing and is how can we actually do better for everyone if that is related to the societal context is that correct . Host mr. Wes moore . Guest great question and its interesting because it goes back to the question earlier about how they add context and one of the first things we have to do isnt add the truth. We as a Larger Society have had a difficult time dealing with the issue of truth to this country and i think because when people say race is one of the trickiest issues in our society, i disagree. It isnt one of the trickiest,ee it is the trickiest when you think about the history of the country. The fact and reality that the country was founded on a racial hierarchy and that it was founded on stolen land was stolen labor. The fact that we have had a history of systemic challenges that again did not end with slavery but immediately went to construction. Now all of these things have provided a context we have to be able to understand. When a founding documents were first put together indisputable as they were in the structure, y didnt include everybody and their have to be a collective Movement Towards this idea. This bending of the moral arc and towards justice also had to be the understanding of a couple of Different Things. What and who was responsible for so much that the country has built and the idea that it doesnt then automatically. It because people were pulling it towards justice of all types of people in the countrys history so when we talk about thingsim like context, that meas how do t we address things like curriculum in our society going back about education. Whenca we talk about the history of things in this country, its important that it moves into our curriculum and its important to understandor one of the things that happened to me was i began to appreciate, when i do begin to appreciate the history of the country, i then began to understand when people say how could you put your life on the length of the country, how did you serve one of the mostif elie military and i would say i would do it again if i had the opportunity to. And i would do it because i know i love this country but loving the country doesnt mean lying about it. Loving this country means being able to understand what does oilemake it so powerful in the t place and names such as baldwin and hughes and parks and carmichael and names such as folks in these are names that are just as important to the framework and the pills of our nations history and its not just important africanamerican children understand that its important all children understand and all children understand that for many people that have toiled to make this country better at every single turn. When we had the chance to make a decision, do we move towards bethany. A limited fashion because there wereau people who looked like every single shade were able to make progress and thats my community and by ancestors shouldnt be eliminated or minimized in that conversation. The other thing i noticed that when we are talkingmimi about context, and in a really important question of context because it also means understanding of the history of that the only time we have had major movements that have lost the Sustainable Impact is when it wasnt just the impact of communities fighting for justice for the impact of the communities. Ce whether we are talking about the civil rights movement, whether they are talking about the antiapartheid movement. Part of the reason it was so effective is because it wasnt just the point of those standing up and saying this is unjust and theres no wayay we can allow a system like this to exist. Part of the reason we had the movement for Marriage Equality is because it just didnt have to be at work for lgbtq fans chanting love is love. Part of the reason we are able to see the movement now is we can add context to our humanity and context is simply about the fact that what youre seeing right now, sometimes it isnt as simple as people want to lay it out to be. Understanding the fullest tradition of our history. Understanding the tradition why we are in the places they are pe right now and the fact that the reason we have this market level of poverty that we see wasnt an intentional act. When people say poverty is a choice of my answer t my answert some of poverty is a choice but its not a choice of the people that were impacted. Its not a trace of the people that were feeling the weight of poverty. People dont wake up in the morning and say i love being in poverty. Its a choice for our society. Its a choice on how much pain they are willing to endure and your question is a good one in terms of how we are thinking about it because context matters when we are creating policies. Context matters when we are deciding what justice means and looks like. Context matters if we are going to truly honor and try to protect not just to the intent of the countrys founding fathers, but the words they put down. And this mortal arc towards justice in order to make those things feel real. Host nancy is in los elangeles. Caller good morning. Can g you hear me . Thank you. Thank you so much for all that you are doing and peter, you asg well. My parents marched with folks at march Martin Luther king and i was so fortunate. I grew up in this christi texas. I was fortunate to have been raised in an environment where my siblings and i were required to a take action if we saw an injustice and you know, i look back at that and i say not everybody was raised in a kind of environment, and i am so thankful that thats how it was for me because i had been, you know, an activist my whole life. I have the goal to help enlighten others that have progressed us as well and want to know what white people can do. People who know that racism is out of control, the change absolutely c must occur. I feel ther that was before may5 and after, that george floyd was killed. And peter, i asked you what date in april of 2015 and to you and i didnt know because thereve been so many. I still havent gotten over Trayvon Martin or nfl. I didnt know about. Fullstop until there was a miniseries that came outas this year. No one that i knew had been taught that in school. If i had done this weekend i made something im going to send an email to help enlighten folks. Do you know about the class divided experiment . Guesthouse absolutely. Host guest caller i thought that would best a start. I think that its by keith boucher. I dont know if you know of that. Host what is your point on that . That . Guest caller with other documentaries, because i feel education is number one for folks to have context like you said and i just saw a documentary i am not your negro where James Baldwin says nothing can change it until it is based. I jotted it down and i was just wondering what could they watch and read to have context and be educated and take action whether its volunteering, giving money, becoming morets politically active. Host thank you very much. Lets hear from author wes moore. Guest such guest such a beautiful question. And also thank you for your vulnerability andndd leadership because there is a tremendous amount of credit also to your parents and your family because the fact that you were raised with having social injustice, you were raised right so i am grateful for that and for what you are talking about in this kind of challenge of racism because when we think about whats happening right now, we see two genuine crisis thrown at the doorstep. First a virus that has had catastrophic impacts on our society and the other was an unneeded reminder of the policing in different communities but the reality is for all of these different kind of crises they expose the same truth in that dealing with an equitable policing isnt about the elimination of choke holds, covid19 did just expose the fact that wireless impacted everybody come it hasnt impacted everybody and Police Reform was necessary in all communities but what we saw with george floyd as you heartbreakingly mentioned, we saw someone who was handcuffed, face down on the ground and take his final breath because a man was nonchalantly his knee into his neck. We see protests taking place around t the country that its t just simply about Police Reform, but its about racism, its about systemic racism. Your point about racism often times i think people think that racism is an act, write, but its like if a person says this one goes to a rally, that person is racist. I get it, that it is a system that finds its way and moves like water to all of our other systems and changes the shape and changes their focus and changes their core this is part of the thing that i love you are talking about because it is both about how are we dealing with education, how are we making sure that we are reading classics like here i stand by paul robeson integrating things into watching documentaries that are able to add a level of exposure to these dynamics but also simply cannot just be s abt how are we going to penetrate individuals but how are we doing it with a focus on being able to deal with systems understanding this interplay between Racial Injustice and economic injustice. Understanding the fact that it doesnt have to be a binary conversation about if this person games, this person must lose, nor is it something that helps any of us by not talking about it and i think about this issue with race way because it is such a tricky thing that sometimes people say i would rather not talk about it or i dont want to Say Something that might be incorrect and therefore i am getting canceled or whatever the case might be. Im pretty certain that in our time here i have probably set quite a few things that have offended quite a few people and i know i am not going to stop talking because that becomes a problem when we just stopped talking about it when we pretend like we can move on without being able to do it. I think about the fact that you brought up i an important word n your question which is true. We have had countries that have gone through in a way they know they cannot move on to a better place if we are not willing to stare at some of the deepest wounds our society has faced. Places Like Northern ireland and chile and colombia and canada twice. Countries that have gone through today and reconciliation processes where theyve been able to say unless we are able to examine thehe things that continue to show themselves in society if we are going to address it once and for all. The reality is the presence of activated a National Guard in this country 12 times in our nations history. Ten of them have to do with race. Only twice had the president activated the National Guard and you didnt have to go with race. One was the looting that took place in new york and the other was the looting that took place in st. Croix after a hurricane. Thats it. So the fact that youve had other countries that have been able to explore their deepest wounds and be able to say the only way we can move forward with a measure of truth is something that i believe is crucial that this country goes through in our own office both federal, local, state and institutional level to know our history and then think about how to move forward with an understanding of what our history actually is. Host you mentioned paul robeson and the book here i stand. Each time an author is on in depth, we ask their print books and they are currently reading. Here i stand as one of her favorite along with the fab five and into the wild by jon krakauer and currently reading dog flowers by danielle, which is about watc what . I wanted to turn it more into the attend step guide for parents and guardians. This is before we had our beautiful children. I asked him what he thought and he w said i will be honest. That sounds interesting but nobody wants to read a parenting b book by a 30 yearold with no children. [laughter] thats a really good point. [laughter] tell the stories because sometimes, statistics give context but stories promote action and what you are trying to do with your work. For me the honest answer is bot both. But also action and context and that is why there is a beautiful masterful job in knowing if you can make a person be connected with who you are reading about then you will have something to fight for because im a big believer when you know what you are fighting for then you know who you are fighting for you will never stop fighting. Thats what the jobs have a brilliant the books have a brilliant job of doing. We have an email. Mr. Moore do you and mr. Coates know each other or have talked about all that is baltimore and Structural Racism . He is my guy. He is another proud man from baltimore, his father is still very very active in baltimore and still a person i know i look to when i admire deeply and we have had a chance to speak a lot about this city and where the city is and where it is going and why it is the way that it is even though he is known for all of his remarkable books Toni Morrison said before that basically he is our version of James Baldwin i dont thank you could give a higher compliment than that the billions of James Baldwin but if you read a beautiful struggle that is another one i will recommend to people to check out and why are so people are so very proud so i am thankful he continues to drive me and others and still very firmly much committed to theo city and the state and the way that im that we know it can and should. Host and his father is a publisher in baltimore if you go to book tv. Org we took a tour of his publishing plant and talked about some of the books he publisheses type in paul coates and you can watch it go ahead marjorie you are tv. Ook thank you so much. You are an answer to a prayer. Yout have it down pat and i want to thank you so much to have the nerve and the tenacity that is all about the community how we got here and how we got out a here black lives matter, john lewis, you are an answer to how we move forward. Do you travel . Because right now im working with the superintending of the schools and the county and i will tell him tomorrow he needs to bring you here to talk for a couple of days that is what we are working on. Host before we get an answer tell us about yourself. What we need to know the truth. Youve got to know the w truth. Here is my question. Do you travel . You dont have to be at the group of people just get here. Host we will get an answer but tell us about yourselfy. Caller i didnt hear a word that you said. I am so sorry. Guest you have no idea how you just filled me upp miss marjorie. I hear it in your voice and in your passion. Im thankful for the work you are doing with our students and no idea how much you filled me up this morning. I do travel i would love to in o one of the joys and spending time with her teachersch and leaders and people who are the ones shaping society so the answer is yes i would love to come spend time with to you. But your comment to me was not just incredibly humbling that one of the most important things that happened toha me , once i got to know my truth in history everywhere im im there because it was written. I knew there were people who were willing to fight for me and advocate for me. Those who woke up didnt know who i was but they woke up every morning with the help of me. It drives me because i can and should be proud of my history. And then to say i dont see color not only is that notel true but when people say to me i dont see color, what i hear is i dont see your blackness. Like that something i should be ashamed of. I am not. I believe that i am so thankful for the people who look just like me, who fought for the hopeho of me. So i stand here knowing that every room i am in i am there because they belong there. Im not in any room because of a social experiment n or someones benevolence or kindness or to prove a point. I am there because i belong there. I am there because the room is incomplete if i wasnt. All children are walking in their beauty and greatness in destiny and help as they are and that there are angels surrounding them every single day who dont even know they are name. But they know their potential. Thats who we fight for. Miss marjorie, you filled me up this morning. Thank you. Host tony from the bronx. Caller good afternoon. I respect you this mr. Mike very much. Talk about your mother buton also about your father. I am 58 and have been in relationships with no children and no wife. I have been in relationships i try to explain to a woman you do need a father in their life because that hurts the children also. But i learned 58 years ago that it is a breakdown in the family and that is very sad. Because a lot of young men are out here. Who is trying to do the right thing but sometimes they dont have the guidance of a black man. I have been int relationships i have a mother, god bless her but my experience i love black women but when you have a black woman who breaks down the black man and doesnt want the black man to be the black man in the family. Host we have a lot on the table. Guest blessings. Its t always good to talk to somebody from there so its great to hear your voice. It is interesting i think of this in context people say is there anything from the other westmore didnt make it into the book . The only answer is one thing that once when when i first transition from knowing him as a friend to writing about this and say can you write hemething to your father i will try to find him. He said only have i only have two memories of mine and one was watching him die in front of me and the other wes had three years old one dash three memories he was 13 years old and he was laying on the couch and asked to he was because he had no relationship with him. I said when i find him i want to give him this letter. He hesitated and hesitated and sent me a letter. Five pages long. The most fascinating mix of love, support, empathy, apathy,d that you have ever read in one letter. It was fascinating to me because i thought about it and i showed it to my publisher and he said did you do it . Have you written a letter to your father . I said no. He said you shouldnt ask him to do something youre not willing to do. So i went to his gravesite and sat with a legal pad and a pen and started writing. Literally just what was on my mind he said i will be honest i dont know if yours is any less confusing. The point that he was making that we both still vessel was something very complicated my father was a special man. A good friend and husband and man. And i think about that in context when wes said our fathers couldnt be there for Different Reasons. And he is absolutely right. But your point isoi the right one. The void is real. Not just how powerful as a functional glue within society that we have to stop doing damage and putting out a false narrative as well for those that want to be engaged with their family we have policies in place keeping people from being engage with their family members. So that you can reintegrate with your family that if they are in Public Housing you cannot join them are else they will be asked to leave. The fact we have so many restrictions with everything from pell grants, Child Support payments and disincentives, we need to you think what it is we want from society. We want engagement, unified families, we need to stop making it so complicated and think about it from a truly holistic processgl knowing its not helpful or useful for anybody that in context of my children who i adore and they have a wonderful mother. How challenging would it be right now with this very unified front but how difficult it was for my mom and for other moms or single dads out there. To create those structures to make those real are tantamount. Host when we taped an interview with you earlier about your most recent book , one of your sons got into the picture but unfortunately we cut it out. I wish we would have left it in because he zips through the office to visit you. He does to. In this moment of social distancing and it goes back to miss marjorie, my kids are allowed everywhere. I dont know where my son or daughter enter into the frame but i always let them know you are welcome everywhere. So even if they happen to pop in before this and just know i am okay with it. Host we would love to see them. Maryland go ahead. Caller good afternoon. I am just wondering, you gave good context about freddie gray that most people wouldnt have that with a comment black lives matter being an organization to destroy society and families especially and also the police and the freddie gray case were acquitted. And if you can comment on the dealing with the riots. Yguest i will tell you when in black lives matter came together in the three women that started the organization not just the acknowledgment better real fear of what we were seeing. And lack of accountability. You bring up an important point thinking the two years prior there were other names involved and what people saw was something where it happen, a payoff and then it goes away. There is a misconception that people had of what happened in baltimore that calm things down going back to your question about governoron hogan people think the thing that calms everything down is when larry hogan called in the National Guard. Thats what brought the temperature down. Thats not true what brought everything down in baltimore at the time that sometimes we just for a conflict so what did bring the temperature down but as marilyn and mosby. Pressing charges against those six officers because baltimore was shot the first time in history that had been done it didnt happen in charlotte or w anywhere. But charges are being filed i remember being there people were shocked there were charges being brought but that is important to note because that is actually what change the temperature is what people thought at the moment there might be accountability for what they were seeing and the doj showed was a pattern and practice for discriminatory behavior taking place that is different from what we see with George N Floyd now because the bar before was indictment because this is about much more. This is really about a conviction in the point about the governors book, one of the things incrediblyte disheartening and disappointing frankly in the governors book he described freddie as a drug dealer with a long criminal rap sheet the reality is i studied thisee and deeply into this as a journalist and reporter who collaborated on the book there was no evidence we saw any gang connection. To make a insinuation and he is gone and he cannot defend his own character the governor has seem to have forgotten the context of freddie gray he seems to doesnt recognize it he was his constituent to. It was the accumulation of societal failure so the governor says people shouldnt confuse him with the singer in a church choir, i dont but he also never had a shot and that is the distinction to draw and the push back what is the take away and what do we do as marylanders and then we dont have to continue keep adding names but also disillusioned to the already complicated situation. Host there is a report that 22 trillion have been spent on the war on poverty since lbj founded but the poverty rate is the same as 1967. This is the text we received please explain how government welfare leads to perverse incentive of life decisions and dependence on the government check instead of self one selfreliance. Youre absolutely right someone from the time of lbj that has seen more that means you are willing to dispose every tool and asset to win. But i can look over the span of decades to show inconsistent policies we have had that have put people and cap people in poverty. And we have policies that we should be retracting because policy positions matter and moments like now. And talk about a welfare system to dis incentivize the reality is we have watched over the past 11 weeks we saw 11 years of job growth gone. 20 percent of people losing their jobs due to covid19 were living in poverty before. This is the working poor. And still were not living above the poverty line if you look at new york city alone half lived in poverty for at least one year over the past four years pre covid19 not half of the borough or demographic but half of the asty living in poverty for at least a year over the past four years and thats research robin hood the organization that iran has of Columbia University so talking about these dynamics and also unemployment that stayed at 4 percent there is a massiveas disconnect here policy recommendations to address we are speaking s about and to know will benefit the population is the most vulnerable. Its as necessary as it was before how to make permanent how do we include childless adults . And then to make it fully and for refundable to support families to the economic downturn. This could and childhood poverty immediately the what it means it does it mean when you create support for people that somehow it is seen as a handout but as we are creating support for the most vulnerable to give them a pathway and the ability to make it through the economic downturn they have nothing to do with it becomes the most effective thing that we can think about our resources when it comes out to recover with the issue going forward. We get 1. 80 back into the economy we have to be deliberate about that. Host we have 30 seconds for you and a 32nd answer. Caller thank you so much. Im a Firm Believer in autonomy to make people feel heard and that when a matter great things happen with elected officials breaking the law with Voter Suppression gentrification so to what extent does power or the lack thereof affect everyday individuals . Guest its a big question and a great question. Thank you. Reen when we talk about policies and philanthropy, its not just about to provide support but how we share power and autonomy we are not here to save. We need to remove barriers it is a big question but power and autonomy and freedom and what we think of policies and philanthropy and work going forward. Host westmore has been our guest for the last two hours we appreciate your time and your calls and text